It’s a good feeling, when you feel that you’re capable of doing anything. I wish I felt that way right now. I know that I am capable of just about anything. But I don’t feel it. When I have felt that way in the past, I always thought that I could do a lot in a very short amount of timelearn a new language or instrument, for instance. But I now realize that some things take time. Important things take time. I only want to feel that I can do anything so I can eventually feel that I have done something. I guess I don’t necessarily have to do something in order to feel that way. But what’s cool about doing something is that it’s actually done and you can go back and see the fruits of your labour, even if only in memory. There’s a big difference between remembering a dream and recalling an actual occurence. There might even be stories to telltrue stories seem more fascinating than fictitious ones.

No matter how well simulated, fantasy can never perfectly substitute reality. Of course, if it’s indistinguishable from reality than it is just as good. But if you know that it’s not real, even if your senses tell you otherwise, then there is something left to be desired. Still, I like to always know whether or not something is real. I don’t want to settle for some approxiamation just because it seems real. I would be depriving myself of a slew of nuances. Take out all the nuances of a musical instrument’s timbre and you rob the sound of its essence. The pure, underlying tone is still necessary, though. It may sound uninteresting, but it’s the foundation for all the overtones. Otherwise, there’s just cacaphony and no actual music.

The universe in general is like that. Although its underpinnings are interesting to a tiny minority, most people couldn’t care less. When seeing the world through the eyes of science, technical precision and alien abstractions are necessary to reap the full rewards of a such a viewpoint. But it’s the subatomic particles and unseen physical forces that make up everything we know, including the planet we inhabit, our prized possesions, the people we love, and ourselves. We’re just patterns of these particles and forces. The objects of our beliefs, dreams, and perceptions are patterns of information, however.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between what is and what isn’t because our senses turn patterns of matter and physical energy into patterns of information so that our computer-like brains can process it. It’s no wonder why dreams can feel so real. But dreams are mostly made up of recycled information, and only the information that yor brain bothered to record. Even the most vivid of dreams lack the immense detail that can be derived from the real world of atoms that attract and repel. It pays to at least think in slightly more precise terms and to think of things that are a bit more removed from common experience. It’s only then will you see things that have always been there but hidden in generalizations we have to make to get on with our lives.

It’s nice to sometimes stop to smell the roses. Not the proverbial roses, the real roses! The atoms that make up the molecules that comprise the rose petal are carried into the air and into your nose until it hits your odor sensors, which is an extension of your brain. It’s at that point that the shape of the molecule determines the pattern of information that says that you are smelling a rose. That may lead to memories and emotions which have nothing to do with the structures of molecules flying from flowers. It may make you think of other roses, ones that exist only in your mind. You can imagine the full bright red petals, and even individual dew drops on those petals. But what images are reflected on the surfaces of those drops? From which direction? You can make that up, but it’s not likely you would have remembered anything like that. And as much as you can imagine the smell, it’s pretty hard to smell something in your mind in the same way you can see or hear something. Thinking of how something looks or sounds like also pales in comparison to seeing or hearing something in real life.

Yet, even now a lot of people would like to imagine smelling the roses, or perhaps more exotic flowers, in a place like Tolkein’s Middle Earth. I prefer planning to smell a real flower in a garden somewhere on this Earth. And I do plan to do so. A garden in Paris, France. That’s where I want to go.

It may be possible to be dirt poor and still be happy, but you still wouldn’t be able to go out and see the world. I suppose if you’re happy it doesn’t matter. I think some people wouldn’t be able to be happy if they couldn’t see the world. I know I wouldn’t. Not as happy, anyway. I would always know that I was missing something. I hate missing things. Unless, of course, not missing something would hurt or kill me. A tree while skiing, or a bullet shot at me, say.